Windopes expeeh Homo Edition IS A NIGHTMARE

This is a design problem Microsoft needs to address. Win xp Home just gives you the two choices: Limited and Computer Administrator, and the first is too limited and the second is too powerful. When I give my kids limited accounts, they squawk, but then they leave their IM clients running when they go to school.

The OS actually has capabilities to customize each user and each file in the way W2K administrators are taught to do, but in the Home edition, many of the interface tools are not installed by default. In the Pro edition, more of the tools are there, but they're not widely publicized and only present themselves if you go looking for them. It's also possible to hack them in from a W2K disk, but that's also not for the typical user. Most home users wouldn't want to act like full-fledged system admins anyway, which is why Windows is so much more popular than Linux in the first place.

The compromise made in Home is that Documents and Settings-My Documents area that can be made private to a user, which is a Good Thing but not enough. First, other Computer Administrators can change your pbuttword and get in. Second, most programs and their data caches are in the unsecured portion of the drive, by default anyway.

It all boils down to a compromise between security and convenience. Linux makes one set of choices, Windows another, and Mac another still. We all get to choose, accept the consequences, and do what we each can to improve the situation.

As Joan Rivers said, "After 40 it's patch, patch, patch."

-- P.